Bernie Sanders Unveils Medicare for All Act

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a new Medicare for All proposal, acting to keep health-care policy at the center of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and marshaling support from four White House rivals for a single-payer plan to expand medical coverage.

“Health care is a human right, not a privilege,” Sanders said at a Capitol Hill rally Wednesday. He said he wants to end the “international embarrassment” of the U.S. being the only major nation that doesn’t guarantee health coverage to its citizens.

He criticized health-care executives’ wealth and the high profits of insurers and drugmakers. “Please do not tell us that this is a rational health-care system,” Sanders added.

His proposal would replace private health insurance with a government-run plan that covers primary care, hospital stays and prescription drugs for all Americans, dramatically changing America’s $3.5 trillion health-care industry.

Sanders, who also sought the Democratic nomination in 2016, has backed the concept for years and offered similar legislation in 2013, when it attracted no co-sponsors. Of 14 Democratic senators who have signed on this time, four are competing with Sanders for the Democratic nod: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren. Gillibrand is the only fellow candidate who attended the rally.

With the plan’s introduction, Sanders is setting the standard for progressives in the health-care debate even as the Democratic Party is rallying to defend Obamacare. The Trump administration is supporting a suit in federal court that seeks to have the 2010 health law cast aside as unconstitutional. Sanders’s proposal is more sweeping than the Affordable Care Act and he’s betting that it will resonate with Democratic primary voters next year when caucuses and primaries get underway.

That position has been risky for some in the field. Harris drew attacks after she said at a January CNN town hall said she was for Medicare for All and that she would “eliminate all of that,” referring to the private health insurance industry. But her staff later said she would favor more incremental approaches. Warren and Booker also have indicated they might consider other compromise approaches.

Not everyone in the race agrees Medicare for All is the best path to gaining universal health coverage, with others offering rival ideas including a “public option” as part of Obamacare. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, has never signed on to Sanders’s single payer idea, and neither has Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a Democratic moderate who is expected to enter the presidential contest soon.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

TICTOC ON SOCIAL:

Follow TicToc on Twitter

Like TicToc on Facebook

Follow TicToc on Instagram

Watch all of TicToc’s videos

Listen to TicToc’s podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter

TicToc by Bloomberg is global news for the life you lead. We are a 24/7 news network that covers breaking news, politics, technology, business and entertainment stories from around the globe, supported by a network of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists across 120 countries.